Act 20: All I Ask Of You
by Nariel
Summary: Takes place during Vol. 7. Ryo makes up his mind and decides to tell Dee how he really feels...


Act 20: All I Ask Of You

**Author**: Nariel

**Rating**: R or M. **It's rated for a reason**, trust me.

**Disclaimer:** This manga does NOT belong to me. I'm simply playing with the possibilities... Come on. How could I own it! I can't draw a straight line even _with_ a ruler! Duh. The song is "All I Ask Of You" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera". I was listening to it in Repeat mode for several hours... guess that makes a major influence.

Author's Note: just skip it and read! And please, please review. Your opinion is important to me. And YOURS, too! Yes, I mean you.

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**Dee's POV**

It seemed like just another day in New York. I woke up too late, as usual. The only thing that made me actually _get_ up was the thought of seeing Ryo, my partner - at work. Unfortunately for me, he was my partner _only_ at work... for now. The vision of him looking up and gently smiling at me, while brushing those soft light brown locks hair out of his fair face gives me the strength to leave the comfortable warmth of my bed. _Of course, it would be much more comfortable and warmer if my hot partner was in it_... that mental image worked better than any coffee: I'm wide awake in a blink of an eye.

Still, it's been a very normal morning compared to the week before, when we were guarding Alicia Grant... then, my phone's ringing, effectively keeping me from following my line of thought.

"Ryo?" I asked automatically. No one else would dare calling me this early.

"How do you know it's me?" _Argh, even his voice is making me feel ...no, I won't finish this thought either._ Instead, I answered in my best imitation of a creepy horror-movie-villain voice:

"For no one else survived calling upon me at 7 o'clock... Mwahaha!"

He laughed in response. "That would explain several serial murders... you know, I'm joking, right?" _Always so polite, my Ryo_, I thought adoringly.

"Sure. So, what's up?"

"Uhm..." He hesitated. " Do you mind coming to work a little earlier...like, half an hour?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah, I do." I answered playfully. "Why? Is it some bet, or..."

"I... I've got to talk to you."

"And what do we have an entire 8-hour-shift for?"

"For working, maybe?" Now he's faking the cheerfulness, very obviously so. He even stops trying. "We have to talk alone, you see."

"Why don't you come over to _talk_, then, ..." I said with a rather seductive voice and pictured Ryo blushing - I'd be very surprised if he didn't...

"I'll see you at the precinct, Dee." His tone was final as he broke up the call.

The Chief's probably gonna have a heart attack when he sees me walk in half an hour early... heh.

Grinning, I pulled on some clothes and hurried downstairs to my car.

Yes, I did have an inkling or two on what Ryo wanted to talk about alone. The husband of that Alicia Grant, Leo, was the guy who had murdered Ryo's parents over 10 years ago. Not enough proofs to do him in, of course. I did understand that a confrontation with Leo would upset Ryo greatly, but I certainly hadn't expected Ryo turning up at my apartment in the middle of the night...and I had expected even less that he would give in to my advances, for once...

And yet, he did. Completely.

_If I didn't want this, I wouldn't be here_. My heart beats faster as I remember these words, spoken in a soft, yet passionate whisper. I also remember every single kiss, every single touch I felt that night: his hands caressing my back, _definitely_ pulling me closer; his lips clinging to mine...it wasn't like it was only my doing, Ryo kissed me back, and more.

The days after... well, there lied the dilemma. Ryo had been pretty distant - hardly talking to me beyond the professional level, always avoided being alone with me...maybe now he would finally make things clear.

Driving to the precinct, with _Phantom of the Opera_ playing on the radio, I pondered about what to tell him. The truth? Something along the lines of_ I love you, Ryo_? It's not that easy. Of course, I love him. I'd give my life for him. Seriously, if my life should continue without Ryo...if I lose him... it would no longer deserve to be called a "life".

We've been through so many things...surely I meant something to him?

_**Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime**_

_**Lead me, save me from my solitude**_

_**Share each day with me, each night, each morning **_

_**Anywhere you go let me go too**_

_**Love me - that's all I ask of you.**_

By the time I arrived, I was determined. I would tell Ryo how I felt. If I didn't, we might continue stalking each other for all eternity. One of us had to make the first step...

Oh, come on, who am I kidding. I couldn't even enjoy all the incredulous looks at my early arrival. I was that particular kind of wanna-fall-down-and-die nervous, as I reached our office. Ryo was already there, staring out of the window. He must have seen my reflection in it because he turned around before I even closed the door.

"Now please don't tell me it's some case you want to talk about." I said in mock wariness.

The smile Ryo offered me was rather shaky. "No. It's..." He took a deep breath. "It's _us_ we have to talk about..."

_Yes! I knew it!_ "Yeah...but Ryo, we don't have to _talk_, you know..."I flashed him my trademark-grin.

"Dee!"

"Okay, okay. I'm listening." I resolved to being serious.

"We can't go on like this," Ryo said softly, looking anywhere but at me.

"I already stopped! See, I _am_ being serious..."

"I wasn't talking about that remark, Dee. I...I mean us. It can't continue like that. It's impossible."

"I agree," I said.

Ryo looked up, seeming rather surprised.

"You agree?"

"Of course!" I exclaimed, foolishly, blissfully oblivious. "We've been sneaking around each other ever since Wednesday night like some bloody teenagers after a first time..."

"It _was_ my first time, Dee," Ryo's eyes were downcast again. "In general, not just with a man..."

I felt like kicking myself _really_ hard. "Oh..." was all I could manage. How _poetic_, Dee, a part of me teased.

"Please, do not interrupt me, Dee." He said quietly. "It's a difficult thing to say... I..."

Again, Ryo seemed to brace himself with a deep breath. "I suppose... I have to apologize, Dee."

"What for?" I asked, utterly confused.

"Everything, Dee. Like for not making things between us clear at the very first moment we met...for continuously giving you something to get your hopes high, only because I was too...too indecisive to push you away or to tell you outright that were supposed to be friends and nothing more, for torturing you almost two years...but most of all, for...for making love to you...even though I knew I could never feel the way you do..." Ryo finally looked at me at those last words. His hands were shaking, and his dark eyes shining with tears. Not a heartfelt expression of deepest love, only a mix of pity, sorrow and sadness.

Now, looking back, I'm surprised I could even breathe, so deeply Ryo's words have shocked and hurt me.

"Ryo...that's a fucked-up joke, man. Really..." I choked out.

With a sad smile, Ryo replied: "I never joke about feelings either, Dee", thus reflecting what I once told him myself.

_Why does my heart still continues beating_, I wondered. _How can the world still turn, after Ryo's words!_

"I'm so sorry, Dee..." Numbly, I heard him continue. "I should have put more distance between us right after your first advances...instead, I've let you suffer, I've left you hoping..."

"But...but you said..." I protested weakly.

"I said I liked you, Dee. I'll even go as far as saying that I love you. But I love you only in a friendly way - and you are the best friend I've ever had, Dee. Certainly the closest - maybe the only real friend I've ever had. There is nothing I regret more than breaking our friendship with inconsiderate affections..."

"_Inconsiderate affections!_" I echoed.

"It was a mistake, Dee. A huge and stupid one. It shall never happen again." Ryo's voice grew steadier with every word.

"A mistake! My feelings for you are no friggin' _mistake_!" Finally, I lose my temper. "You wanted me, I wanted you... what the hell's wrong there!"

"Dee..." A tear dropped from his long, dark eyelashes. "I'm so sorry... I...was out of my mind... in need for closeness and... affection...I should have remembered how much hurt it would cause you..." _'It'_ being the so-called inconsiderate affections? Why are you crying, then, Ryo? You think you do the right thing, so why does your voice fail you? If I'm nothing more than your friend, why can't you look into my eyes?

"I know things will never be the same as before. I can't stay here and watch you suffer, and neither can I stand you hating me." Ryo spoke with newfound determination. "I handed my transfer forms in last week...asked the commissioner to pull a couple of strings for me...However, today Bikky and I are leaving to Los Angeles."

I dropped down on a chair - apparently, my subconscious had decided to spare me the humiliation of falling on the floor, should my legs give out.

"He will be fine there," continued Ryo, his voice emotionless."It's a good place to grow up... besides, they offered him a basketball scholarship, and he's really talented, he might make it, you know?"

_Oh yes, I do_. Only two weeks before, the three of us had played basketball in the backyard of Bikky's school. Ryo's merry laugh, as I've let my eyes stare in opposite directions after getting hit on the head with the ball (by Bikky, unsurprisingly), still rings in my head.

I could only nod, then another fact found its way to my brain with a white-hot knife's searing pain. "You leave today?" I asked down struck. My eyes prickled unpleasantly. _They're just a little dry, Dee...ignore it...you're not going to cry now..._I told myself rather strictly, but the sensation didn't subside.

Through my blurry vision, I saw Ryo coming closer to me, then finally going down at his knees in front of me. Gently, he clasped my hand in his own. "Please, Dee," he begged, "Promise me not to freak out or do something stupid, just...just forget me, alright? Find someone who can love you the way you deserve to be loved...the way I cannot love you...try and be not too mad at me, okay? That's all I ask of you."

_Love me - that's all I ask of you..._The song from the radio echoed ridiculously in my head, as Ryo leaned forwards and gave me a chaste, bittersweet kiss on my lips. For the tiniest of moments it felt like he didn't want to go... then the moment of weakness ended. He got up, turned around and headed for the door.

"Ryo!" I gasped, the moment he reached out for the handle. "Don't...don't leave like this..."

I could not see his face, but he shook his head in silent denial.

Tears flowed from my eyes, but I no longer cared. All that mattered was, that his slim, pale hand was frozen at the door's handle, unmoving.

"I love you, Ryo. I love you. No matter what you tell me now, I will always love you. No one else could ever take your place... I love you, d'you hear!... And don't you...don't you even try to pretend you don't hear me, 'cause I know you do... I love you...and always will..." My voice died away, as I tried and failed to stop it from trembling...

_Please God,_ I begged silently, _please, let him turn around_...

_**Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime**_

_**Say a word and I will follow you**_

_**Say you want me with you, here, beside you **_

_**Anywhere you go let me go too**_

_**Love me - that's all I ask of you.**_

"It's wrong, Dee." He whispered and walked out of the door. Just like that.

Damn right you are, Ryo. It all _was_ wrong... You were supposed to turn, throw your arms around me and declare your undying love... well, something like that... but you didn't.

In a movie, you would have. But this was reality, the sound of the closing door, and the following deafening silence.

Through the opened blinds of the window I watched Ryo getting into a cab. As he opened the door, he looked back one final time and met my eyes...only to jump into the car and close the door in the very next moment, effectively crushing the last bit of hope in me.

Days went by, turned to weeks...I hardly noticed. My body and mind were operating on their own: writing reports, interrogating criminals, chatting with colleagues in the coffee room... once, a drug-dealer's bullet hit me and I did not even wince - perhaps the ache in my heart was already too much to notice any further pain. I felt nothing but emptiness - everything I lived for has been taken away from me in two minutes. My day's ambition became returning to my apartment (ever since Ryo left, I no longer referred to it as _home_), falling down on the bed and burying my face in the pajamas he had worn that fateful night..._how long has it's been_? I stopped counting the days. The pajamas still held his scent, but it was fading more and more. And every time I remark that, I know that more and more time passes without Ryo in my life. Arriving at this thought, I cry myself to uneasy sleep.

On the outside, however, I'm on perfectly normal behavior. Nobody knows. I jest, laugh, flirt with some pretty new secretary or some handsome pizza-service guy...and it's working: no one notices that my smile never reaches my eyes.

Carol, Bikky's best friend, called me once to find out his phone number. She told me that Bikky and her had some hell of a row right before he left because he caught her kissing some other boy. It was excruciating to hear her asking about Ryo as if nothing happened. I broke down right after throwing the phone away. She tried to contact me many times more, even coming up to my apartment several times, but I always made a show of not being there.

Her visits become less and less; eventually, she'll forget me, too. I know _I_'ll never forget, but I don't need another living reminder.

Strangely enough, not even in my darkest hours do I hold any ill will against Ryo. It was his right to decide against me, after all. You can't force people to return your love. But you still can dream of it, reliving every precious moment a thousand times over and over again. And dream, I do... Any time someone knocks at my door, I run to it like a man possessed(well, that ain't far from the truth) in the hope to find Ryo standing there. He would smile gently at me...wipe my tears away with his soft fingers...and tell me he loved me.

But it never happens.

And when I think about it, I cry even more. 'Crying ain't manly', people may say. But personally, I think being bisexual is a good excuse for crying.

Having lost the love of your life forever is a good excuse for crying.

Not being loved in return is a good excuse for crying.

Knowing you will never love again is a good excuse for crying, too.

And if all these things are combined...the calm and quiet of death starts to look all tempting and alluring.

**End Dee's POV

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There are many people in New York. Several hundreds of them are journalists. And one mild August night, one particular journalist has fallen asleep over her notes. One of those, with two crossed-out headings '_Murder in the NYPD_' and '_Suicide in the NYPD_', is only half-ready.

_-Dee L. aged 28 _

_-police officer_

_-Found at apartment; Bronx;_

_-Wrists slit open;_

_... Murder? or suicide_

--> _no intrusion signs_

There is also a photo tacked to the paper: a handsome young man (we assume it's Dee L.) with ruffled dark hair is lying on a blood-stained sofa. The picture's quality is rather bad; otherwise we might have seen the tear tracks on the young man's face, the razor blade in his left hand... and we might also have deciphered the photo clutched in his right hand.

It shows another young man in late twenties, whose dark eyes betray Japanese roots, looking up and into the camera from a file-covered table with a look that seemed originally meant to be reprimanding but turned into a smile as the picture was taken. A gentle, almost loving smile.

Of course, no high photo quality would ever enable us to see the photography's back, where, unknown to us, one single word is written: _Ryo_.

Author's Note: This fic is based on personal experience, and my heart was spilling every single word so fast I could hardly type it all. In fact, there were a lot similarities/parallels to the manga - the main difference being the lack of a happy ending in my case. Oh, and there's of course the little fact that I didn't kill myself...

So, being the evil bitch I am, I decided to change the events of Act 20 "Second Chances".

I might add a little epilogue to this...maybe...about the reactions of others to Dee's death...especially Ryo(no, no, don't worry, I won't kill him, too)... or what do you think? Tell meeeee?


End file.
